Navy Awards Contract for P-8A Poseidon Safety
P-8A with towed decoy deployed
BAE Methods illustration
The Navy just lately awarded BAE methods a $4 million contract for a “fast turnaround” demonstration of a brand new radio frequency countermeasures system for the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane, the corporate introduced in January.
“Its main mission is twofold. First, it’s to stop an enemy radar from locking” onto U.S. plane, stated Don Davidson, director of the superior compact digital warfare options product line at BAE Methods. Nonetheless, “in the event that they do get a radar lock and fireplace a missile, its final objective is to seduce the missile away from the platform.”
The system might be pod-mounted and embody a small type issue jammer, a high-powered amplifier and BAE’s AN/ALE-55 fiber-optic towed decoy.
The decoy has been used on board different Navy plane such because the F/A-18E/F Tremendous Hornet.
“Proper now on the P-8A, they don’t have any of the tools required to assist a self-protection system,” Davidson stated in an interview.
“We needed to put all that tools inside a pod that may be mounted on the plane with out requiring something on the plane itself.”
The corporate will design, construct and combine the methods at its Nashua, New Hampshire, facility. Following the combination, they are going to be examined for 2 months in early 2021 on the P-8A.
“This want for velocity is much more prevalent as we speak than it has been in years previous,” Davidson stated.
The Navy issued a white paper figuring out considerations about rising threats with regard to surface-to-air missiles and requested for a self-protection functionality to be delivered shortly, he famous.
“Since we do that for a dwelling, we had a variety of merchandise and capabilities that we had developed for different functions that we had been capable of leverage,” he stated. “We may take these current capabilities, combine them collectively — they’re sufficiently small to slot in this pod — and we may carry this functionality to bear in what has basically been 5 months.”
The finished pod was slated to be delivered on the finish of January, he stated.
Matters: Navy Information